


Crayons, Please

by tuppenny



Series: Growing Together [11]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, fluffy fluff fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 17:37:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14218269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: A vignette of Jack, Kath, and their very bossy toddler.





	Crayons, Please

**Author's Note:**

  * For [passionslipsaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionslipsaway/gifts).



> Jack and Katherine are 28, Ellie is 25 months, Daniel (Crutchie's oldest son) is 3 1/2, Edward (Crutchie's second son) is 15 months.
> 
> From a prompt Anna gave me; the first fourth of this is on tumblr, but the rest is all new! :)

**April-ish, 1911**

Two-year-old Ellie was kneeling on the couch, leaning over the arm of the sofa and dropping her crayons one by one onto the floor. “Uh oh!” She said, watching the blue fall and looking over at Jack, who was sitting at his desk, trying to do the work that he’d brought home over the weekend. Not having gotten a reaction from him, she dropped the green. “Uh oh!” She repeated, swiveling her head towards her father. She bounced slightly up and down as he continued to work, seemingly oblivious to her, and then, thoroughly frustrated, she yelled “Uh oh!” even before she’d released the yellow. 

“Uh oh what?” Jack said, finally looking up. 

“Uh oh, Daddy, uh oh!” Ellie said, beaming at him and brandishing the five remaining crayons in her two little fists. 

“Oh, uh oh,” Jack said, setting his pen down and turning in his chair to look over at his daughter. “Did you drop your crayons, Bunny?”

“Yeh, Daddy, dwop crans!” Ellie smiled and threw the purple crayon across the room. 

“No no, Bunny,” Jack said, rising to pick up the purple crayon, which had rolled under the coffee table. “We don’t throw our toys.”

“Gimme,” Ellie said, making grunting noises as she reached uselessly for the purple. 

“Say please.”

“Peas!” Ellie hopped up and down on the couch, waving the remaining crayons and smiling at Jack. “Peas cran, Daddy!” 

“Here you go, Ellie,” Jack said, stretching across to Eleanor, who dropped every single crayon she had in order to grab the purple one.

“Uh oh!” She squealed, pointing at the floor. “Uh oh, Daddy! Uh oh!”

“Uh oh,” Jack said tiredly, squatting to pick up the crayons. “How about I put these back in the box, Ellie? Crayons are for coloring, not dropping.” 

“No!” Ellie scrambled off the couch, sliding backwards off of the cushion and nearly landing on Jack’s hand in the process. “Want crans! Gimme crans!” 

“Are you going to color with them?” 

Ellie pushed out her lower lip and glared at him. “No.”

“Then no crayons.”

“Daddy!” She wailed, collapsing onto the floor. “Daddy, peas! Crans, Daddy!”

“You can have them if you’re gonna color with them,” Jack said patiently, reaching to the other side of the sofa to gather up the blue, green, and yellow she’d dropped earlier. “Are you gonna color with them?”

“Nooooooo!” Ellie said, falling forwards and kicking her feet on the floor. “No! No! Gimme craaaaaaaaaans!”

Jack tried very hard not to laugh, but a snort-laugh escaped anyway. He quickly turned it into a cough and then said, his voice stern, “Okay, Ellie, it’s time for your nap.” 

“No nap! Crans! Daaaaaddyyyyy!” Jack laid the crayons on the coffee table and picked Ellie up, deciding against trying to wrestle the purple crayon from her grip. She struggled in his arms and beat the purple crayon against his chest. “Peas, Daddy! Peas!” 

“Naptime, baby.” 

“No nap! Peas! Peas! _Peas!”_ She screamed so loudly that Mitzi the cat jumped off of the chair she’d curled up in and raced to hide under the couch. “Gimme craaaaaans! Daddy, crans! No nap! Peas!” 

“I know we toldja please was the magic word, Eleanor, but land’s sakes, it ain’t a get outta jail free card,” Jack sighed, hefting her higher onto his shoulder and patting her bottom. “You are a handful and a half, Bunny, I’ll tell ya what.” He walked her around the nursery a couple of times, rubbing her back and making soothing noises. Once she subsided into hiccups and whimpers, Jack switched to singing Ellie’s naptime songs: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Sing a Song of Sixpence. 

“…along came a blackbird and nipped off her nose!” He finished, settling her down in her crib.

“No, Daddy, no,” she mumbled, reaching up for him with one hand, the other still firmly clenched around the purple crayon. “Crans, Daddy, peas. Gimme kiss. Crans. Okay?” 

“Here’s your kiss, Bunny,” Jack said, bending low to press his lips to hers. 

“Hug,” Ellie ordered, her eyelids beginning to droop.

“Here’s your hug, Bunny,” Jack said, smiling. 

“Snug…” She yawned. “Snugabun.”

“Here’s Snugglebun,” he said, picking a battered stuffed rabbit off the floor and tucking it in the crib next to her.

“Crans,” Ellie tried again, her voice hopeful even as she drifted off to sleep.

“Not a chance, astoreen,” Jack said, stroking her short curls.

 

*

 

Katherine checked her watch before entering the apartment. The odds were even on whether or not Eleanor would be awake yet, and so she made sure to enter quietly, foregoing her usual effusive greeting. She tiptoed into the living room to find Jack hard at work. “Hello, love,” she said, approaching him from the side so as not to startle him. 

“Macushla,” he said, looking up and smiling at her, his eyes a little bleary from staring so closely at the page for so long. “How was the interview?”

“It went well,” she said, pulling two lollipops out of her pocket and handing the cherry one to Jack before sinking onto the couch and propping her stockinged feet up on the coffee table. Jack popped his lollipop into his mouth and watched Katherine settle in on the couch. “I know I’m supposed to love all my children equally,” she said, unwrapping the lemon lollipop and pointing it towards the nursery, “But that one made my life a lot harder than she needed to. _This_ one,” she said, gesturing to her barely visible baby bump, “Lets me eat whatever I want, doesn’t make me cry all the time about ridiculous things, and is happy to let me keep reporting stories. I think we’ve got a good one in here, Jackie.”

Jack laughed. “We’ve got a good one in the nursery, too.”

“We do,” she agreed. “She’s not easy, but oh, how I love her.” 

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Jack asked, brushing at his nose. “How much you can love someone so small?” 

“It is,” she said, looking down at her stomach. “And soon enough we’ll have two.”

Jack didn’t respond verbally; he slipped off his chair and vaulted over the back of the couch, landing heavily beside Katherine and wrapping her in his arms. 

“Easy, there, dear heart,” she laughed, “I don’t want you reinjuring your knee.”

“Aww, Ace, that was a fluke,” Jack grumbled, reflexively rubbing at his left knee, which he’d bruised rather badly two months ago by slipping on a patch of ice. It had long-since healed, but the weeks he’d spent cooped up in the apartment, knee wrapped and crutch under his arm, had been dreary and frustrating for all of them.

“You’re getting old,” she said teasingly, “Who knows when those hips of yours are going to give out!”

“Ohhhh, missy, you’re lucky you’re so pretty,” Jack said, tugging at her earlobe. 

“And that I’m your wife and carrying your child?” 

“And that,” Jack nodded. He scratched at an itch on his collarbone and shifted to prop his feet next to hers on the coffee table. “The boys are split about even on whether this one’s a girl or a boy, by the way.”

“Just like they were split even on Eleanor being a girl,” Katherine commented, leaning her head on his shoulder and resting her hands on her belly.

“Yup.” 

“So much for the wisdom of the crowd,” Katherine said, chewing on the cardboard lollipop stick that was still in her mouth. 

“Maybe we tell Ellie today?” 

"Mmm." Katherine poked gently at her stomach. “You hear that, baby? You need to move around this afternoon so we can introduce you to your sister.”

“We can introduce ‘em anyway,” Jack said, rubbing her shoulder.

“True,” Katherine said, “But I think it’ll make it more real for Ellie if we catch her when the baby’s moving. The little one usually gets pretty active around three or four, so hopefully Ellie doesn’t sleep too long…” She trailed off at the faint sound of a possible noise from the nursery. “I suppose we made her ears burn,” Katherine said wryly, pushing herself up from the couch. “I’ll get her.” 

Jack let his arm drop to the sofa cushion and closed his eyes briefly before returning to his desk. He kept his attention focused on the sounds coming from the nursery, though; Ellie sometimes got fussy when whichever parent put her down for her nap wasn’t the same one who woke her up.

He needn’t have worried; Ellie was in a radiant mood. “Mommy!” She squealed, all tears instantly forgotten at the sight of Katherine. “Mommy, Ewwy ‘wake!” 

“I see that, baby,” Katherine said, lifting Ellie into her arms and carrying her into the kitchen. “Are you hungry, my little muffin?”

“Me big muffin,” Ellie said, patting Katherine’s chest. “Big, big muffin.” 

“Okay, big muffin—are you hungry?”

“Yeh,” Ellie said, sticking her thumb in her mouth and mumbling around it.

“I can’t hear you with your thumb in your mouth, baby,” Katherine said. “Take it out and tell me again.”

“Wanna ‘nana!” Ellie yelled, bouncing up and down on Katherine’s hip. “ ‘Nana, Mommy! Peas!”

“Okay, baby, I’m going to put you down so I can get your banana. Sit at the table, please.”

“Kay!” Ellie chirped, grabbing the chair she usually sat in and squirming up onto the booster seat they’d placed on it. “Weady, Mommy! Nana, peas!” 

“Here’s your banana,” Katherine said, handing small, peeled pieces of the fruit to Eleanor before turning back to the sink to wash her hands and fill two cups of water, one much smaller than the other. “What do you say?” 

“Fank you,” Ellie sang, her fingers already sticky with fruit. “Fank you! ‘Nana deeelicious!”

“Your banana is delicious?”

“Mhmm!” 

“I’m glad.”

Jack walked in then, and Ellie waved at him, swinging her legs in time with her chewing. “Daddy! 'Nana!”

“You have a banana? That’s nice. Does it taste good?” He asked, casting an amused look at Katherine. They liked playing this game with Eleanor; she was always very enthusiastic about food.

“Deeeelicious!” Ellie sang again, waving both of her hands at him, proudly displaying the mashed fruit coating her palms and fingers. 

“It's deeelicious,” Jack said to Katherine, pulling out the chair opposite Eleanor. “Good job, Mommy. Did you hear that? You picked out a deeeelicious ‘nana.”

Katherine laughed and sat down next to Ellie, holding a wet washrag so that she could clean her daughter’s hands once the banana was gone. Eleanor hummed happily as she put the next slice of fruit in her mouth and then said, “Danny pay?”

“You want Danny to come play?” Katherine asked, wiping a gobbet of banana from Ellie’s cheek. 

Eleanor nodded and smashed a piece of banana into the wooden table.

“No no, Eleanor,” Jack said, “We don’t smush our food.”

“Sowwy.” Ellie scraped the squashed banana off the table with her hand and licked it off her palm.

“She has your table manners,” Katherine said, eyeing the mess.

Jack snorted. “If only.”

“Danny! Pay an’mals!”

“Danny can’t come play animals with you today, baby,” Katherine said, scrubbing at the table with the washrag. “He’s visiting Uncle Spot and Uncle Race.”

“Me too!” Ellie said, knocking over her cup of water in her haste to scramble out of her chair and run to the door. “Ewwy too! C’mon, Daddy, c’mon, Mommy, lesgo!” She disappeared into the hallway before Jack could catch her, and he and Katherine looked at each other, half tired and half amused, as they heard clunking sounds echoing off the wooden floor. “Weady,” Eleanor announced shortly thereafter, shuffling into the kitchen with her feet wedged into the untied canvas flats that Jack and Katherine found easier than the standard button-up children’s boots. “Get shoes. Lesgo.” 

“We’re not going to visit Uncle Spot and Uncle Race today, Bunny,” Jack said, pulling Eleanor into his lap and taking the washrag from Katherine. “Mommy an’ Daddy have to do work today. We’ll go soon, though.”

“Go _now_ ,” Ellie said, her lower lip beginning to quiver. “Pay an’mals! Pay Danny Unca Spot Unca Wace.” 

“You can play animals with me,” Katherine said soothingly, stretching to chuck Ellie under the chin. “You want to be the cat and I’ll be the elephant?”

“No,” Ellie said, fidgeting in Jack’s lap and pouting as he cleaned her hands. “Danny.”

“You’ll see Danny tomorrow,” Jack said, finishing her hands and moving on to wiping her face. “But you know what? Mommy and Daddy have some exciting news for you, Ellie-girl.” 

“Inna paper?” Ellie gasped, her eyes widening as all thoughts of Daniel and Uncles and disappointment flew out of her head.

“That’s right,” Jack said, tapping her snub nose. “Just like in the paper.” 

“Yay!” Ellie said, throwing her arms around Jack’s neck. “An’mal paper!” 

“It’s not animals,” Katherine said, uncertain she’d ever be able to follow her toddler’s train of thought. “It’s—oh! There we go, Jack, the baby’s kicking; bring her over.”

Jack complied, settling Eleanor back into her booster seat.

“Here, muffin,” Katherine said, taking her daughter’s hand and positioning it where the baby was kicking beneath Katherine’s skin. “Feel that?” Ellie’s eyes widened, and she looked from Katherine to Jack, uncertain how to react. “There’s a baby in Mommy’s tummy,” Katherine said, smiling down at her little girl. “We’re having a baby, Bunny. You're going to be a big sister.” 

Eleanor stared down at Katherine’s stomach, engrossed by the completely alien movement of her unborn sibling. Then she frowned. “Mommy,” Eleanor said, reaching up to pat Katherine’s cheek. “Shh, Mommy. Mommy okay.” She slipped out of her booster seat and tugged at Jack’s hand, wanting him to bend down so that she could talk to him in private. “Daddy,” she said in a standard toddler stage-whisper, “Mommy eated bug.” 

Katherine clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter, and Jack’s lips twitched as he knelt in front of his daughter and took both of her hands in his. “It’s not a bug, Bunny,” he said, trying very hard to keep his face straight. “It’s a baby.” 

“Baby bug?” Ellie whispered, casting a skeptical look back at her mother.

“A baby _person_ ,” Jack replied, squeezing her hands. “Like baby Edward over at Danny’s house.” 

Ellie blinked, and then her dark eyes widened as she finally began to understand what her parents meant. “No bug?” She asked, just to make sure.

“No,” Jack said firmly. “There's no bug.”

Ellie turned to look up at Katherine. “Danny baby?” 

“That’s right,” Katherine said, stroking her stomach. “A baby like Danny’s baby, but this baby is going to live at our house. This baby is our baby. You’re going to be a big sister, Eleanor! What do you think?” 

“Baby?” Ellie crawled back onto the chair and knelt to place her ear to Katherine’s stomach. She giggled as she felt the baby kick some more, and then she looked up at Katherine. “Ewwy baby? No Danny baby? No sharing?”

“No sharing,” Katherine confirmed. “The baby will live here with us. Your baby.” 

“My baby!” Eleanor crowed, her chubby face splitting into a brilliant smile. “Hooway!” She flung her arms across Katherine’s stomach and nuzzled into it, her short curls bouncing. “Hi baby,” she said, poking the spot where she’d last felt the baby kicking. “Ewwy baby! Pay an’mals crans books, night night bed Snugabun allllllllla kisses. Okay baby?” She pressed her ear back to Katherine’s stomach, waiting for an answer. “Baby say okay,” she announced, patting her mother again. “Baby pay Ewwy, Mommy.”

“The baby won't come play for a little while yet, I hope,” Katherine said, her words aimed at Jack, who made a face in commiseration. Ellie missed this exchange, though, in favor of sliding back off her chair and hopping over to Jack.

“Daddy! Mommy tummy baby! No bug!” 

“That’s exciting, Bunny,” Jack said, holding out his arms for Ellie to hug him, which she promptly did. “Are you happy about your baby?”

“Yeh!” Ellie said brightly. “Daddy-- Daddy draw Ewwy baby!” She tugged at Jack’s hand and led him out into the hallway. “Hep draw, Daddy. Okay? Okay? Ewwy hep Daddy?" She waited until she got a nod from Jack, and then she smiled triumphantly and said, "Crans, peas!”


End file.
